The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) identified 12,379 underpayments between 8 January 2024 and 31 March 2025, totalling around £104m in arrears for those affected by Home Responsibilities Protection (HRP) State Pension underpayments.

According to the update, the average arrears paid was £8,377 between 8 January 2024 and 31 March 2025.

In the same period, HMRC sent 370,018 letters. It also processed 8,639 applications under the state pension age and 44,296 applications over the state pension age.

In total, the DWP received 22,781 cases from HMRC and processed 21,878 of them.

The error around HRP arose because many Child Benefit claim forms submitted before 2000 did not include a National Insurance number, meaning that the relevant HRP was not carried across from the Child Benefit computer to the National Insurance computer.

This update follows the previous update published in November 2024, which showed that DWP identified 5,344 underpayments between 8 January 2024 and 30 September 2024, who were owed total arrears of around £42m.

Industry experts previously raised concerns over the pace of the government's progress in addressing HRP errors, which is set to continue until 2027/28.

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